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ericchri

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Blog Entries posted by ericchri

  1. ericchri
    I recently started responding to a forum post, realized my post was growing ever-larger and mostly revolved around the topic of, "I think this guy will be better, but this guy, not so much...", and realized I was heading down the exact same path which caused me to create a questionable blog last year. And what's the best thing to do with questionable blogs? Pile on more, of course, making it into a "yearly" questionable blog topic (which assumes I may remember in future years).
     
    As with last year's 'The Completely Arbitrary +/- System to Predict "Something" About the Twins', http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/2534-The-Completely-Arbitrary-System-to-Predict-quot-Something-quot-About-the-Twins, I need to offer the following statement:
     
    The biggest assumption being made in this is one player manning the position for the majority of the season, which of course completely nullifies most of the value from predicting anyway. Many players will suffer injuries, many will be replaced/traded mid-season, and various other things can happen to make that a truly horrible assumption. But it's easier than the alternative, and therefore is perfect for my arbitrary system.
     
    Last year's post turned out to be incredibly (along the lines of, "... broadside of a barn") accurate, so I guess I'm ready to make arbitrary and mostly unsupportable "predictions" about the Twins upcoming season to prove why I shouldn't write blogs. Here goes...
     
     
    Left Field: Umm, who played LF for us last year? I had to check baseball-reference on this, and it shows Willingham played 72 games there, so I guess he was our primary left fielder even though that's less than half a season. The rest were covered by Clete Thomas, Darin Mastroianni, Chris Herrmann, Ryan Doumit, Oswaldo Arcia, Wilkin Ramirez, and even Eduardo Escobar. Interestingly, Chris Parmelee didn't get any time in left even with that motley collection of others who did. But wait, I'm supposed to be predicting how this year's player will be compared to last year's, not waxing nostalgic over the amazing talent displayed last year. So, yeah, LF this year will be Josh Willingham, I guess. He'll hopefully be healthy this year and able to produce, I predict (WAG, whatever) better offense and comparable defense (puke) to last year. Offense+, Defense=.
     
    Center Field: Hmmm, left field already sent shivers down my spine and now I get to consider what we ran out into center field last year. It's starting to look like Aaron Hicks will get the job again this year, but of course he managed to lose it last year. Regardless, I don't want to think about who else played large numbers of games in CF last year not named Hicks or Presley. I think Hicks will put last year behind him and settle into the role adequately this year. His defense started out shaky but got better, including some highlight grabs and throws. I think he'll be more consistently good this year, and he's better than the guys who replaced him so Defense is improved. Offense, hopefully it can't help but be improved. Offense+, Defense+.
     
    Right Field: Bleh, this blog is now reminding me of how incredibly awful our outfield was last year. I mean, shouldn't outfield be one of the easier positions to be able to fill with borderline competent players. How was ours so consistently awful? Parmelee couldn't hit but played okay defense, Arcia hit okay but played terrible defense, backup catchers Ryan Doumit and Chris Herrmann got a lot of games in RF, just, uggh. Arcia gets the job this year. He should be better offensively, but how does a full season of him compare to what we had last year defensively? My guess is a wash, Parmelee didn't get enough games there for the defense to be significantly downgraded over a healthy heaping of Arcia and Doumit last year. Offense+, Defense=.
     
    Third Base: Trevor Plouffe takes over from Trevor Plouffe. Much as I hope we see more of June 2012's "Good Trevor", I suspect we're going to see lots of the usual mediocre Trevor. In the words of Miguel Sano, er make that Brad Swanson, "Ligaments are stupid." Offense=, Defense=.
     
    Shortstop: I guess we're in for more Pedro Florimon. I thought he'd play his way out of the majors last year, but he sure showed me, didn't he (.611 OPS)? He was better on offense and defense than I expected, but I still want someone who can legitimately hit to get this job. It looks like I'll be waiting a while for a real solution here. I don't see much reason to believe we'll see anything different from Florimon this year. Offense=, Defense=.
     
    Second Base: Finally, this blog post was getting depressing, I can finally feel happy about something. I can feel happy, right? June-September Brian Dozier is the real one, right, not the guy we saw before that? One of very few hunches my ever-expanding gut has had that hopefully turned out correct, Dozier was pretty good last year. I doubt his defense can be better than last year, honestly, but hopefully his bat is better over the course of a full season. Offense+, Defense=.
     
    First Base: We replaced a previously-concussed former MVP with a previously-concussed former MVP. Hopefully the current version isn't hampered by post-concussion problems. I think Mauer has the potential to be pretty good defensively, but I was always a fan of Morneau's, so I'm guessing the defense gets a little worse this year with Mauer. He's capable of being good, but he needs more time there to get fully comfortable with it. Offensively, it's a pretty good upgrade, though. I wanted to go with a double-bump for the offense from Morneau to Mauer, but Morneau was actually one of our better hitters last year, sad as that is, and I couldn't quite do it, not knowing if Mauer will have any concussion issues. I hope he doesn't, and I hope my offensive predicition is too light. Offense+, Defense-.
     
    Catcher: Errr, I said I'm predicting one player with the majority of the time at the position for the season, didn't I? Well, good thing this system is fake and I can change it whenever the heck I want to. I predict a relative 50-50 split for Kurt Suzuki and Josmil Pinto this year, slanted for Suzuki early and Pinto late. Now, compared to Mauer, yeah, this won't be pretty. Offense--(I figured there'd be a double somewhere), Defense-.
     
    Designated Hitter: Well, DH was bad last year. Doumit was sort of the DH, I guess, but I don't think anyone could really be considered the DH last year. Pretty much everybody who was on the roster got a chance to DH last year, I think. I could have sworn I saw Mike Pelfrey lobbying for the chance at one point, thinking he could do it as well as anybody else who did. Since I already broke my own rule at catcher, I can now calmly put Chris Colabello and Chris Parmelee in at DH this year. Jason Kubel should have been able to grab this job, and instead we get a platoon of AAA mashers that can't hit in the majors. Parmelee will probably get more AB's, being a lefty hitter. Boy do I hope he swings his bat instead of trying to be Joe Mauer. I get angry when Mauer stares at cookies, and he has a career .323/.405/.468/.873 batting line, Parmelee needs to swing at that stuff. I'm not sure we got any better or worse here, and that frightens me. Offense=.
     
    Bench: Do we actually have a bench? Backup infielder (must be able to play short, hitting optional), backup outfielder (must be able to play center, hitting optional), backup catcher (hitting optional). Last year's was terrible, this year's will hold up the standard. Wash.
     
    Bullpen: Last year's was pretty good overall, but then bullpens are pretty much unpredictable. I like our chances for this year's to remain a little above-average. Wash.
     
    Starters: As last time, I use a scale to rate the starters as a whole:
     
    Putrid
    Bad
    Mediocre
    Average
    Fairly Good
    Good
    Excellent
     
    I was tempted to add a couple more layers, as I didn't think last year's rotation could get worse than 2012's Putrid, but boy did they try to prove me wrong. I'll try to adhere to at least one standard in my system, and pretend last year's rotation ranked in at Putrid. I learned my lesson though, and I'm only predicting the same improvement I did last year, up to mediocre. If we'd made the same offseason additions before last year as we did this year I would have predicted we'd make it to average, but I should never overestimate our Twins' ability to have horrible starting pitching. Thus an automatic downgrade by one rank over what I think they should be.
     
    So, that all added up to +4. As we established last year, every plus of my prediction leads to another 6 wins, thus the reason last year's Twins won 90 games exactly as predicted...
     
    Hmmm, that seems familiar. Wait, that's the same rank I had last year. This system is clearly bogus. Somebody shut this guy up.
  2. ericchri
    I've been tossing this idea around in my head a bit as I start getting excited for the upcoming season. We have lots of highly rated prospects, lots of depth, lots of unknowns. I sat back a little and tried to figure out who I was actually most interested in seeing how they performed this year. This isn't a Top 10 prospects list, smarter people than me have already done those.
     
    I'm assuming Buxton will dominate. I'm interested in that, certainly. But he's not the guy I'm most interested in finding out something about, I suspect we already know most of what we need to know about him, with him it's hopefully just about waiting. But we have lots of guys I really hope to get a better feel for this year as we hopefully start a large-scale roll over to prospects this year and next.
     
    #1: Danny Santana - we've heard glimmers about his defensive prowess and his hitting looks to have some potential. Is he the next Pedro Florimon, or can he be a competent two-way starting shortstop for the next half-dozen years? I think I want the answer to this more than anything else this year.
     
    #2: Stuart Turner - I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm really curious about him. He seems like he might be the perfect match for Pinto. A great-defense, mediocre hitting catcher to match up with the good-hitting, mediocre-defense (hopefully better, jury's still out) Pinto. I don't know if he will, but if he shows signs of being able to hit a little, I expect to see him move quickly.
     
    #3: Mason Melotakis - There's some lefty starters that look to have more potential, probably, but I still have some high hopes for him. He hasn't had much time as a starter yet, I'm curious how he'll perform in a second year of full-season ball as a starter. An eventual move back to the pen wouldn't be a shocker, but I'm hoping for good results this year to make that a failsafe, not a given.
     
    #4: Adam Brett Walker - His power is just so intriguing. Can he hit a breaking ball? I don't know what the overall reports on his defense are, but in my sample size of one (the Cedar Rapids game which was on FSN) he looked pretty athletic, and his stolen base success indicates someone with more going for him than just a powerful swing. He'll presumably be in a pitcher's league in Ft. Myers this year, we should finally start getting a better idea of how he may progress.
     
    #5: Ryan Eades - We saw barely anything from him last year, as he threw only a handful of mediocre innings. Where will he pitch? Does he look like he can be a major leaguer some day? I think he's almost completely forgotten about amongst our starters, but if he turns out to be good how awesome would that be? He was a really good starter for a really good team in a really good college baseball conference. Surely he has something going for him?
     
    #6: Trevor May - Another of the almost forgotten pitchers. Many seem to already be writing him off as a starter. His numbers didn't get a lot better in a second AA season, but they did improve in almost every category, even if it was small. He still seems like a guy who could be a #3/#4 pitcher for a lot of years, with flashes of being better. Not everybody will be an ace, but he still has a lot of the tools to be pretty good.
     
    #7: Jorge Polanco - Will he actually get a full season of playing SS, or will he just fill in when somebody else isn't playing there? Can he actually man the position adequately? I'd be very much on board with a great-hitting, average-defense SS. Can he be that guy? Will he have to move back to 2nd, and if so will he be better than Dozier or Rosario?
     
    #8: Stephen Gonsalves/Lewis Thorpe - cheating a bit here. Couldn't decide which of the two I'm most curious about, but high-upside lefty starters presumably playing above the rookie leagues are definitely guys to pay attention to.
     
    #9: Alex Wimmers - Will he ever manage anything? A former #1 pick who's barely even pitched professionally. Almost more of a human interest curiosity than a baseball one at this point, but one I'm really wondering about.
     
    #10: Amaurys Minier - Is he the next highly-rated International signing to start making waves in the Twins system? He seemed pretty inconsistent this last season (injuries?), but I hope to have a better idea of what his potential might be after this year.
  3. ericchri
    With all the talk of late as to who might be our "shortstop of the future", one thought keeps popping back into my head. It's a thought that probably has about as much chance of happening as my winning the lottery twice in my lifetime (and since I haven't won it once yet, unfortunately...) but I can't shake it. Thinking about it a little more has caused me to think about a few other things, like what you want in a shortstop, not just who should be playing the position.
     
    I'll start with the ridiculous notion first, so everyone can laugh and skip on to the more useful information located elsewhere on the site. Our shortstop of the future should be: Miguel Sano.
     
    First off, where this idea comes from: A quote from Terry Ryan. I don't feel like digging up the exact quote at the moment, but I don't think it's so controversial that anybody is going to challenge it. Essentially it was a quote from Ryan about Sano saying in effect, "he still thinks he should be playing shortstop." And that part of me that wonders about things like this got rolling. Actually that wasn't exactly the foundation for the idea, as I've wondered a bit about moving shortstops to third base previously, but this finally made me interested enough to formalize ideas worthy of putting down in print.
     
    A positional glance at what the Twins have coming up through the farm shows a large number of extremeley intriguing prospects, covering most every position except shortstop. Yes, we do have a few names attached to the position, but none of them are making the kind of noise many of our other positional prospects are. Niko Goodrum may have the highest ceiling of the group, but he's more raw athleticism than polished product at the moment. Jorge Polanco looks to be a decent hitter, but may not have the arm you'd want to be the full-time shortstop. Levi Michael was once listed as the best defensive infielder the Twins have (BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Rankings: Organization Top 10 Prospects: 2013 Minnesota Twins Top 10 Prospects), but his hitting has never been very impressive nor consistent. Danny Santana has shown flashes of talent but not much consistency. James Beresford is great defensively but has no power to speak of. Any of them might be fine, but none seems to have "future All-Star" vibes.
     
    We have more potentially great outfielders than we know what to do with. 2B has Eddie Rosario looking the part, and Polanco profiles a little better there than SS. 1B has Kennys Vargas and Dalton Hicks in addition to being a potential fallback for hitters who struggle in the field. Catcher has Josmil Pinto currently ripping up his league and Joe Mauer should still have a few more good years in him. Sano currently plays 3B, as does Travis Harrison and now Amaurys Minier, all looking to be plus (likely even better) bats.
     
    So, we have a potential surplus of really good bats at 3B. How did that happen? Because we decided that Miguel Sano was going to outgrow the SS position. I couldn't help looking at that and thinking, "Why?" I'll grant that he is going to be a big man, that's obvious. What is it about being large that inherently means he should move to a new position before even getting to try, though?
     
    Cal Ripken played the position at a solidly-built 6'4". Alex Rodriguez was a much better defensive shortstop at a muscular 6'3" than Derek Jeter but Jeter got to keep his spot anyway, moving A-Rod to 3rd. Heck, Jeter (6'3") has always been more "shortstop who can hit" than good defender, undeserved gold glove awards aside. Troy Tulowitzki is listed at 6'3", 215 lbs. Why could they do it but others can't? When I think about traits you want in a SS or 3B, a strong arm is obvious, and is possessed by Sano already. In fact he's believed to have an incredible arm, easily good enough for either position. That's part of why Cal Ripken could play the position, he could play a half-step deeper and gun people out anyway. Couldn't Miguel Sano do that as well?
     
    Okay, what other traits do you want in your SS? Range, quickness, agility? Well, the range thing is hard to quantify as I'm not a professional scout, nor am I even an amateur scout who watches Sano play. I just read about him on the internet. Judging range gets back to the notion of arm strength somewhat, though. The deeper you play, the more range you have, you get that extra fraction of a second to move to the ball by playing deeper. Quickness? Again, I'm not a professional scout, but I can read boxscores to see that Sano hits triples and steals bases. He's not the second coming of Jim Thome. Agility? Sure, a big guy is going to suffer in that category, but the SS is rarely going to make acrobatic plays to convert double plays, that falls more on the 2B to make the crazy turn-and-throws as they come across the bag and have to throw back to first. And how many people really want to go full out in a takeout slide at a big guy who might take their head off with a throw?
     
    With 3B it seems to me like the primary trait you want after arm strength (maybe even before) is fast reflexes. You're closer to the plate, the ball is usually hit a touch harder as it's being pulled more (by righties), the ball just gets on you much faster at third than at short. So to be good at 3rd, you want someone with fast reflexes. Wouldn't you want to determine what kind of reflexes someone has first before making that switch? It's easy to say, "well, he could manage shortstop where only the best fielders can play, he can manage 3rd," but is that really true? What if the guy managed short by having good positioning and a strong arm, not by having lightning reflexes? And wouldn't a large frame be just as likely to struggle with the fast reflexes needed to play 3rd as they would to have the range needed to play short? Sure, with a strong arm, he can play deeper to give himself more time, but that's exactly what he'd be doing to play short, too.
     
    I find myself wondering if it isn't an issue where the positional bias is actually working incorrectly. Shortstop is considered the most important defensive position, arguably catcher might be as well but it's a lot harder to judge than shortstop. And because of that tons of light-hitting slick-fielding players over the years have manned the position to allow for their glove to at least be viable on the field. Thus somehow all these little guys who've played short because it was the only position they could play and not be a complete liability may have skewed the notion of how big you can be to successfully play shortstop. Somehow we've got the notion that "shortstops have always been small so you have to be small to play shortstop" stuck into our thinking, overlooking the possibility that it might not necessarily be the case.
     
    Magic Johnson was a point guard at 6'9" because he was a great passer and ballhandler. LeBron James can guard other teams' point guards because he's a great athlete and can use his size to give himself a cushion smaller players can't, not because he's the same size as other point guards. Sometimes guys just do things a little differently and their size makes them look a little out-of-the-norm. That doesn't mean they can't do it, just that somebody let their talent and athleticism determine what they could do, not making an arbitrary decision that their size meant they should do something else.
     
    Do I truly believe he could play an adequate shortstop in the major leagues? Actually, I kind of do. I don't necessarily think he'd be a gold-glover, and might in fact be a little below average. But I think his bat would be so plus-plus-plus for the position that it would be worth it. Especially as it would mean Travis Harrison or Amaurys Minier might have a position to move into when they're ready as they look to potentially be much better hitters than anything we'll produce to fill our shortstop hole. What if he keeps growing to be 270 lbs. you ask? Well, what if getting to play the position he wants to play leads to him working on his conditioning more than playing a position where he can just get big and not worry about the consequences, meaning he would have prolonged his career by a few years if he'd stuck at short? I don't have these answers, but I like thinking about it and going , "what if?"
     
    Imagine that lineup:
     
    CF - Buxton
    2B - Rosario
    C - Mauer
    SS/3B - Sano
    LF - Arcia
    1B - Vargas
    3B/SS - Harrison or Florimon
    DH - Pinto/D.Hicks/Walker
    RF - A.Hicks/Kepler
     
    Doesn't the thought of Travis Harrison (or eventually Amaurys Minier) sound better than the next Pedro Florimon? How bad would Sano's defense at short have to be for you to not want to trade Harrison's bat for Florimon's? And what if he could actually play it well due to the cannon he has for an arm?
     
    Well, there you have it. The reason I read about baseball on the internet instead of working in baseball. As is my wont, I've rambled on longer than necessary. I've already acknowledged this is never going to happen, but I think it's a fun idea regardless. That lineup just makes me drool if Sano could put up his presumed monster line from short instead of 3rd.
  4. ericchri
    Somewhere, somewhen, I realized I'm generally ill-suited to responding to internet forums as I often type up ten times as much information as is really suited to being in a forum post. It hasn't stopped me from doing it, but it has stopped me from posting more than about 1% of the things that pop through my head when reading forums. I type up a response to a thread that starts growing as I try to add details to clarify why some of the things I was saying were as they were until it gets to the point I realize it no longer has anything to do with the posted topic.
     
    My usual response is to just close the page before I add tons of unnecessary text to what doesn't need to be so complicated. Recently it occurred to me, the site owners in their infinite "wisdom" allowed people like me to spew out random ideas for some reason and let us call it a blog. Well, that is pretty much what blogs are for I guess. So here it is, my completely arbitrary thoughts unposted to a forum thread and instead turned into some kind of system with which I can predict almost nothing about the Twins in 2013 based mostly on a bunch of hunches. Look out, Bill James!
     
    When approaching the topic of how the Twins will compare to last year's team, I decided the best way to approach it was position-by-position to make assumptions about my expected performance in relation. The resulting "system" ended up being a +/- system. What are the pluses and minuses, you ask? In essence, a plus means I predict better performance than last year, and minus is conversely a prediction of worse performance. Simple right? At the end I can just total up all the pluses and minuses and "accurately" predict why the Twins will be better or worse than last year. Or something...
     
    The biggest assumption being made in this is one player manning the position for the majority of the season, which of course completely nullifies most of the value from predicting anyway. Many players will suffer injuries, many will be replaced/traded mid-season, and various other things can happen to make that a truly horrible assumption. But it's easier than the alternative, and therefore is perfect for my arbitrary system.
     
    So here we go...
     
    Left Field: Josh Willingham manned it last year and will again this year. While I'm inclined to believe he'll have a hard time repeating what he did last year, I'm letting my optimism run wild with this one and going with a push both offensively and defensively. Offense=, Defense=.
     
    Center Field: Denard Span is gone and being replaced by Aaron Hicks. Span was a good hitter last year, though that .342 OBP wasn't exactly stellar for a leadoff hitter. It'd be fine for a lot of teams, but he's done much better in the past. Hicks had perhaps his best year as a hitter in AA last year, but there's no way it translates to as much success at the majors as a rookie. Boy would that be nice, though. I don't see much chance Hicks hits as well as Span did last year. Defensively is a more interesting proposition. Reports have Hicks being extremely fast with good instincts and a very strong throwing arm. Span has never seemed much more than average to me, but he seemed to have his best year defensively by a good bit last year. Any other years' defense by Span and I'd call this a plus, but Span's best year to a young Hicks's first year in the majors makes this a push. Offense-, Defense=.
     
    Right Field: Ben Revere turns this over to Chris Parmelee. There's really nothing similar about these two players. Best I can do is WAG this one as a push offensively. We're trading some OBP and stolen bases for slugging on this one, hopefully it's about equal. Defensively, well, that's a pretty huge loss. No need to expound anymore. Offense=, Defense-- (yep that's a double minus).
     
    3B: Trevor Plouffe gives way to new and improved Trevor Plouffe. Pretty much I'm just predicting more offense for the entire season than what we saw last year and improved defense based on being able to prepare to be the 3B for the entire offseason. Plus he's already gotten through the inital learning curve. I pretty much think he'll be better. How's that for scientific? Offense+, Defense+.
     
    SS: (redacted) last year to Pedro Florimon (more on this later) this year. Well, the position was pretty much terrible both offensively and defensively last year, and that's being kind. And apparently our starter is going to be part of what contributed to the (redacted) last year. That being said, I'm hoping Florimon just had a few bad errors in a compressed timeframe last year when he was trying too hard to impress. His offense will be a push with last year's, which doesn't require much, and his defense will be a little better than what we got last season. Offense=, Defense+.
     
    2B: (Mostly) Alexia Casilla to Brian Dozier. One of my biggest hunches is Brian Dozier taking over second and playing well. I want my gut to shut up so I'm not disappointed, but unfortunately it's been growing larger every year, and I can't control it like I used to. If Dozier hits like I think he can, we have a massive improvement from last year's contribution. While I think he'll be adequate defensively, I don't think Dozier matches Casilla's defense. Offense++, Defense-.
     
    1B: Another totally scientific prediction of "he'll be better than last year offensively." I don't think there's much reason to expect his defense to be any different, so hopefully last year's second half is more indicative of the Morneau we're getting this year. Offense+, Defense=.
     
    C: Joe Mauer to Drew Butera. Watch as we run the best-hitting catcher in baseball out there game after game and he guns down runners while calling perfect gameplans for the pitchers. Nuff said.
    Okay, reality says Joe Mauer matches last year. I'm hoping for better defense this year, but honestly I'm not real confident in it. Offense=, Defense=.
     
    DH: Ryan Doumit both years. Not much reason to expect different results that I can think of. Offense=.
     
    So for the starting lineup, that totals up as Offense +3, Defense -1. Yay, we're better this year.
     
    Moving on to the bench, at this point my arbitrary system to compare positions 1-to-1 gets thrown out for the new arbitrary system to call the bench a wash as a whole. Bad last year, bad this year.
     
    Bullpen. Hmmm, you know that 1-to-1 comparison thing is a lot less fun when it's not a starter. Most of the same guys back from last year, bullpens are notoriously impossible to predict, I'm calling a wash and hoping nobody's looking.
     
    Now for the rotation. Quick, name the top five starters from last year. Scott Diamond, ummm... Cole DeVries, Sam Deduno, all right executive decision says 1-to-1 comparisons are again pointless. Good thing this system is arbitrary. I'm making up a separate system for the rotation to see how many ranks better I think this year's rotation will be than last year's and making that equivalent to a +/-. The ranks from worst on top to best at the bottom of the list:
     
    Putrid
    Bad
    Mediocre
    Average
    Fairly Good
    Good
    Excellent
     
    I say we go from last year's putrid to this year's mediocre. Diamond is about equal, to last year (he didn't pitch the whole season last year, either), Worley should be better than anything else we trotted out last year, hopefully Hendricks is better, Pelfrey and Gibson combine for a season's worth of starts better than most contributions last year. Still below average, but compared to last year's I'll take it. That's a nice ol' +2. Woot.
     
    All right, the grand total says +4. It's a good thing that in my arbitrary system each plus translates to 6 more wins right? Right? There you have it, the Twins are winning 90 games next year.
     
    Okay, obviously my pluses don't actually translate to anything beyond saying I'm predicting the Twins to be a little better next year as a whole. In trying to come up with the reason I was going to be optimistic about this year's record, I ended up going through this drawn out exercise, and it was enjoyable even if it'll be proven completely absurd in a couple more months.
     
    About Pedro Florimon. I think if they'd just admit Jamey Carroll is their best shortstop, even though he's 39, it'd also contribute to the overall improvement of the team. He's solid. Unspectacular, but solid, both offensively and defensively. If I substitute Jamey Carroll for Pedro Florimon in the above assumptions it leads to another +2, which then means the Twins are winning 102 games next year. How awesome is that? There seems to be some notion we should run Florimon out there because he's younger, as if they can pretend he's the shortstop of the future by doing so. If he's an amazing defensive player and below-average on offense, I'll be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately I just have no hopes of that, and am instead expecting inconsistent defense to go with atrocious hitting. I do know Carroll was third on the team in OBP last year, though, and didn't make many stupid errors like much of our infield. I'll take a workman-like Jamey Carroll over our combined shortstops from last year any day. I haven't seen/don't know enough about Escobar to have any real opinion about him, so I'm leaving him out of the equation.
     
    And there it is. You can take all those other projection systems and shove them. My clearly superior system predicts the Twins win 102 games next year based on pretty much nothing and should handily win the AL Central because I've also arbitrarily decided nobody else is winning 102 games. Detroit can take their loaded roster home and cry about it.
     
    Enjoy the season!
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